The Thursday! Newsletter 1-38: How I Write Stories
Volume 1, Issue 37
I'd like to tell you how I write stories.
This isn't a brag essay, by the way. At least I don't intend for it to be one. I've posted 166 stories to the "Fiction" category of my blog since 2015. I know I have roughly 20 more tucked away that I haven't published to my blog. A couple of them were contest entries, a few went to Instagram, and I have a half dozen or so cooling out in a draft folder in my Google Drive awaiting the mighty Hand O'Revision. Let's say, for the sake of the newsletter, I've written 186 stories in 6 years. That's 31 stories a year.
Sounds like I lot, doesn't it? I guess it is, though if you want to minimize what I've done (and I often do that to to myself), you can say that most of the stories are less than 500 words, so my gross word output isn't all that hot. You'd be right. I won't try to compete on total word output. Heck, I won't try to compete on output at all. Writing isn't a volume game unless you're Stephen King and writing "hobokiller" books* is your top career goal. Stories are stories, to mangle a Dr. Seuss quote, no matter how small.
Of course, you want to do a bit better than one story a year, too, if you can manage it. Though writing isn't a volume game, you do have to produce stories people can read eventually. That just makes sense, right? I've done a bit better than that. I've not quite reached the Ray Bradbury Advice goal of one short story a week, but this year might be the year I get there. Like I said, I'm not out to brag about the number of stories I've written, but I would like to share how I write. You might find something of use in it that will help you write the stories you really want to write, as many as you want to write. Wouldn't that be cool?
Okay. Let's get into this.
How do I write my stories? I start with a cheat.
Now hang on. Before you say I'm scamming you here, let me explain that. My brain isn't always fully fueled and waiting on the creative runway for me to zip up my Top Gun Writer jump suit, pop on my helmet, and fly it down the highway to the Danger Zone. Oh, heck no. I have a mundane life, just like most people -- a full-time job, errands, a lovely wife, friends and family obligations, church, all that stuff. I don't have a certain writing schedule (and that's a problem I would like to remedy soon) right now. Getting into the creative flow takes a little more effort for me than it might for other authors who have all the wonderful cues and preparatory rituals you get from a set creative schedule.
So I cheat, with creative jump-starters. I use pictures or song lyrics or made-up story titles or little scraps of dialogue I wrote down days before when it popped into my head. I reach into that pot of ideas about which I wrote back in Issue 17, ladle something out, and see what I can do with it. Usually, I can make something interesting out of what I find. It's not perfect, but it gets me started.
Once I get that initial thing -- whatever it is -- I then try to think of the weirdest possible story I can write around it. What is the craziest, most gonzo thing I can do with the basic idea? I let that take some form in my mind, whatever form it wants to take. It is very important that I don't try to guide the crazy at this point. I just want a wild idea that makes me laugh or say "whoa" or, preferably, both! Once I have that, then I take it down a notch. Very few authors can get away with writing their very craziest ideas down. Very few. You might be one of them, and you should certainly give it a shot if you think you are, but don't be surprised if you aren't. It's okay, though. I get really cool stories when I put the crazy inside some limits. One of the best things I've ever written, "The Compact", came from scaling back a crazy idea. That story began as a loud, funny story with a toasty demon and a sassy kid. It ended up as a sweet story about despair and friendship and it makes me tear up just a little bit when I read it. Another of my stories, "Don't You Fret", began as a weird conversation between death and an old guy working on a trolley about how business had fallen off for both of them lately. It ended up a macabre little morsel about worry and how Grandads somehow just know things will be right.
Once I get that crazy idea trimmed down to something cool, but not quite so crazy, my next step is to figure out what the hard, glowing center of the story is. Who is the coolest person in the story? What is that person doing right now? Why? I slow myself down and look with my mind's eye at the scene. The scene I see isn't always the story, and I've gotten a bit used to that by now. It would bug me early on. I'd write the scene I saw and get frustrated when it turned out that wasn't the story at all. That was just the prelude -- the bit of action and setting that set up the actual story. I started "Big John's Last Deal", with the meeting between Big John and the Hoodoo Man. That wasn't the story. The story came later, just before that odd noise outside the trailer. To be sure, the meeting was important, but we didn't need to be there. We could just get a recap from Big John himself. In fact, we needed the recap from Big John because that recap told us something important about him in much fewer words. Big John was way gone by the time he got there. We didn't need to see him get there. We only needed to know just how bad it was. And it was bad.
I couldn't have gotten that cool, tight tension had I started outside the trailer just like I couldn't have gotten real warmth from Haros and his Grandfather had I started with Faros fretting over a financial spreadsheet. But I needed to see those scenes in my head so that I could see just where the story needed to begin. Now, if you want to write those scenes down to give you a bit of runway room so your story can get the speed it need to soar, go right ahead! Just don't worry if you end up getting rid of more than you think. It's okay. The folks who read your story won't know what you cut out. They'll just love what you gave them.
Oh! I haven't told you how you find that glowing center of the story. That's because, so far as I know, there is no one way to do it. I've read a lot of writing books and listened to interviews and the only thing I've learned for sure is that every writer comes to that knowledge on their own. I can give you a couple hints, though. First, when you think through your story, you'll probably hit a point where you stop and go "ooooooooh!" Stop right there. You're on it. Second, the center will probably involve a character you least suspect when you start to put the story together. The Big John story? Big John isn't the center. I thought he would be. He's not. When that happens, let it. The story is steering now and you're well advised to just follow it until it takes you to its own center. Stories will do that, you know. It's not magic, by the way. That's your creative mind doing the work it was made to do!
Okay. So. Here we are. I've cheated a bit with a jump-start. I've come up with something truly wild, taken it back a level. I've discovered the real glowing ember that lights the story and keeps it hot. Now all I need to do is write.
Turns out, writing is the easy part. Once I've done all the other stuff, the story is pretty much written. Seriously. Again, it's not magic. All the hard work of character and theme and whatnot is pretty much done in the other steps. The one other thing I like to do before I start to write is to pick a length for the story. You don't have to do this. As far as I can tell, most authors don't. It helps me, though, and so I share it with you. I find my writing is more focused when I'm working in a limited space. In a 100-word story, I know I have to get to the center quickly. I can't be fancy. There's no room for flowery language. Every word is essential and I spend most of my time finding just the right one -- often a word that can do double or triple duty. A 2000-word story can scroll out at a more leisurely pace, but I still have to move things along. This isn't a 100,000 word monster novel. I don't have time to describe the buttercups on the lee side of the hill in the meadow where the protagonist likes to nap in the afternoons. Unless the buttercups are important. Unless the buttercups are the external antennae of a vast underground creature who has been asleep for so long it only seems to be a hill in a meadow.
Huh. Look at that crazy idea! I bet that'd make a nice little jump-start for an enterprising writer. See how that works?**
I think I'll bring this to a close now, as I've gone on for almost 2000 words now. There's only so much of me anyone should endure! I hope I've been useful or at the very least not boring. See you next week, okay? Okay!
*A hobokiller book is a book so thick that, were you attacked by a crazed hobo, you could take him down with one mighty whack.
*Hint hint winky wink!
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What I Wrote and Read Last Week
"Joshua and the Angel" is the third installment (Hey! That's the word I want! Installment!) of "The Lighthouse".
"I Miss People" is lovely and heartwarming right up until it twists.
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One Last Thing
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