Nose to Grind-Stone (Or Flash in the Pan!)
(Edited: Lanzarote beach - Dec. 06)
(Edited: A pan holding our farm together March 08)
I’m working quite a lot on revising some flash fiction pieces I did ages ago and I am making a few changes to my full length poetry manuscript which I had sent out to a Publisher who has just come back to me with some really good news – I don’t want to jinx things by talking too much about it just yet but hopefully before long I will be able to say what is happening.
I’ve been reflecting on how I started out writing poetry about 4 years ago and then I began easing into flash fiction pieces and non-fiction prose. I think I’d now like to try my hand at Short Story writing but don’t quite know where to begin. The idea of writing maybe 3000 + words or so both excites and scares me as I feel that I’d lose the momentum on the way there. The most I’ve written is about 1500 words. I wondered if anybody has any advice on how to start off; here are some things I’ve been mulling over.
1.Different ways people have got into Short Story writing.
2.The experience of the move from poetry to Short Stories or vice versa. (e.g. does one impinge on or help the other...)
3.Favourite Short Story writers.
4.Beginners pitfalls to avoid or if unavoidable how to escape from suchlike relatively unscathed (if that is at all possible : )).
5.Anything else at all related to the whole art of Short Story writing! Thanks: )
P.S. Oh and are there any D.I.Y. books that you would recommend!
posted by Liz at 12:09 pm
11 Comments:
I bet WRW would have plenty to tell you, but the best advice is to just write and worry about the mechanics later. If you're looking for books to read, read short stories: analyse those and go for the ones that you like. I really liked Claire Keegan's Walk the Blue Fields, top short story book for me for 2008.
Beginner pitfalls: keep it simple, keep characters to two or three, no more. I've found that I find it difficult to write long short stories as I'm so used to compression, so I very often can't make the word count... maybe practice writing by the hour, rather than worrying about what your word count is?
Good for you, for trying something new!
HI Liz,
I'm with B on the don't worry about the word count thing. It'll come out the right length in the end (the perfect length for that story).
1. I wrote more poetry before s/stories, so I think the form could well suit you. Brevity is important and as a poet you already know how to work that.
2.The move from poetry to Short Stories: poetry will help. THe love of language, and the ability to be concise especially.
3. Recommended writers: Eilis Ni Dhuibhne (espec The Pale Gold of Alaska); Edna O’Brien, Flannery O’Connor, Seán O’Reilly, Mike McCormack, Anne Enright, Colum McCann, John Updike, Emma Donoghue, Manuel Munoz, Rose Tremain, Ernest Hemingway.
4.Beginners pitfalls to avoid: thinking too much about it! What inspires you? What's your poetry about? Maybe take an image (photo/painting); or a poem of your own and see if you can make a story from the narrative of it.
Write, write, write. Edit later!
5.Good interviews/articles/links on www.theshortstory.org.uk
I have a piece on my website called 'Why short fiction?' or some such, which tries to explain my love for the form. www.nualanichonchuir.com
Read contemporary writers to see what they are doing.
Good luck!!
Me again. 2 more things:
1. Recommended books: 'Self-editing for Fiction Writers', by Renni Brown and Dave King. Best one I've come across and I've boughts lots of books for teaching purposes.
2. Congrats on the poetry publisher's interest. Hope it works out well!
Barbara and Nuala, thanks very much, that is some fantastic advice there...I am totally getting all worked up for this now...: ) Intend to spend the afternoon checking out some of the people and websites you suggest.
Thanks again.
x
Good morning, lady! Just wanted to stop in. After all my company left, I have crashed and burned ... meaning, it's around 11AM here and I just woke up!!!
I sometimes do my best writing (that is, when I am writing) outside. I hope it's beautiful where you are.
Good news about book-to-be. I have written stories but long rambling ones with heaps of characters! Never did much with them though they are on my website if you want to see how not to do it!
x
Grace Paley and Alice Munro - Queens of the short story genre. And beg, borrow or steal a copy of 'Cathedral' by Raymond Carver. In fact I think its available on the internet.
I knew you'd get that poetry manuscript accepted, too much good work to be denied.Like you I'm thinking of writing my first short story.I'll probably go to The New Yorker website choose a less well known one and copy it verbatim.Actually you could do worse than downloading them onto an mp3 and listening to them over and over again, I find some of them very inspiring and this way they are absorbed more viscerally than by reading.
Hi there,
Glad to be able to access Blogger again, I haven't had access since Sunday...was beginning to imagine that Blogger had gone belly-up too like the blogging journal TFE had mentioned!
bfs, it's true that visitors can be exhausting...exciting but exhausting! Great to know you had a good time.
Rachel, I think you have the 'knack' for good story-telling ; )...must check out those you mention.
Frances, welcome and thanks for the recommendations...I'm a big fan of both Carver and Munro.
TFE, great tips there...thanks for being a believer! ; )
And Nuala, just did some reading of your website - it's a mine of great info...looking forward to taking my time going through it...
x
Plenty of good advice above.
I'd suggest reading other short story writers who started as poets - they're plentiful; Ray Carver & Margaret Atwood come to mind. Inspiration!
Maybe form a writers group (not sure if you're in one already?) - to test your stories and get feedback?
The old reliale; keep a small notebook with you - jot down anything that catches your interest; places, things, people, snatches of conversation, what-ifs. Any of these can be the seed of a story - or combine a couple to see what story might be suggested?
Personally, I went through a phase of finding it difficult to get stories started. Even though poems were firing nicely. I stopped 'starting' stories, and instead just wrote 'pen pictures' of characters (often based on people I encountered - just further down a fictional road). Quite often, those character descriptions bloomed into raw material for a story.
Best of luck!
PJ, thanks for all the great tips -especially the one about starting a story - I think this is where I might fall down...will take on board what you say.
I am a notebook keeper ok but more for words than characters and events so must start incorporating that...
I'm in some online poetry groups but not in anything for stories...will check that out too!
cheers : )
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