fiction

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Flash Fiction: An exercise in editing

This post is approximately 750 words, about as long as a typical flash fiction piece.

I discovered flash fiction a few summers ago. Seemed like the perfect way to churn out quick little stories that I didn’t want to flesh out further. I’m fan of O. Henry and fairy tales, both of which are often very short. For me, sometimes there wasn’t much story to tell, and that was fine. And with a word count of 500 to 1,000 words, it should be no problem cranking something out in less than an hour, especially for someone who’s been typing for more than half his life and finds himself bursting with ideas.

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So, oh yes, it was very easy to type quick stories: 1,200 words, 2,500 words, 5,000 words! How in the hashtag was I going to edit down stories of those lengths? Well, for the longer ones, I couldn’t. They would sit, untouched, until I had the time to flesh them out into longer short stories (the 5,000-word one has since doubled in length).

But the 1,200-worder posed a delightful challenge. I just needed to trim my story by 17% (yes, I’m an English major who likes math). That’s probably about what I should be looking to do with my writing anyways. In a story of this length, that was about two paragraphs. I reread the story, looking for a section to cut. And read it again. And again.

I was stuck.

Every paragraph seemed to drive the narrative forward. Every detail seemed critical. After all, why would I put in anything that wasn’t essential, especially when word count was a key consideration? I felt like I had laid a path with paving stones and was now trying to determine which ones to remove. At first glance, it seemed my smooth story would soon be filled with potholes.

All right. I’ll nickel and dime the heck out of it and see what that gets me. Continue reading →

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The Edges of Fantasy

This post is about 600 words.

Seven years ago, I was shoveling my driveway for the third time in twenty-four hours. A blizzard was sweeping across the upper Midwest, making up for the lack of snow we’d had that season. I was happy for its arrival. The snow, not the blizzard.

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My preferred method of winter transport. They smell bad on the outside.

I have a routine when clearing the driveway: first define the edges, then push the snow outwards from the middle. That day, it struck me as analogous to how I wrote fantasy fiction, which was different than the way I wrote everything else. I thought I needed to approach fantasy by rigidly defining all aspects of the world before filling in the storyline. I felt I needed to know the limitations of my realm, which really seems counter-intuitive for a story designed to exist completely outside our own reality. Here’s a quick list of the things I wanted to create first:

Races, political history, creation myths, alphabet and language, folklore, weapons, armor, architecture, landscapes and geography, clothing and fashion, fighting styles, music and poetry, racism, and heroic legends

That’s a monumental amount of detail to develop before the main character begins the Hero’s Journey. Even though some story ideas blossomed from this world-creation, I struggled getting to the serious writing before I’d defined every aspect of my new world. Until I’d found the edges.

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“In my rewrite, this shop is on another street!”

That’s the real reason I never got far in my original fantasy novel. But man, oh man, I really enjoyed defining those things, which is part of the trap, right? It’s exhilarating to play god in your own little world, even if the devil is in the details. I might have put down 100,000 words on paper, but more than half were notes and definitions and guidelines and rules, rules, rules.

Consequently, I abandoned that epic fantasy novel, despite having created several maps, dozens of characters, and components of everything else on my aforementioned list. It was the right decision. It was too big for me and was going to get in the way of the rest of my life.

I knew I would eventually return to this world when I was ready. Continue reading →

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Writing Exercise #2: Out of the Rain

This post is approximately 400 words.

Some people have a musical soundtrack that plays through their minds as they walk or run. I have this, too, but more often than not, I have narration. My head is filled with the story of what could happen to someone in my situation. Not so long ago, it was a rainy walk to work.

The first sentence is the exact first thing that came into my head as I stepped onto the sidewalk. The rest followed me as I went.

*     *     *     *     *

He walked unconcernedly through the rain. The quiet drizzle was a nice respite from the thunderous show of the night before. His umbrella echoed with rhythmic pit-pats as his shoes splashed through puddled evidence of the storm. All-in-all, he told himself, it was a nice change from his usual morning walk to work. A little variation in an otherwise monotonous journey he’d made hundreds of times in the last five years. People ran past with jackets over their heads or briefcases held high, but their attempts to stay dry were in vain. He allowed himself a smile, though it still took an effort to bring it to his lips.

It took a few moments for him to realize – at least, that’s what he would tell himself later when he tried to recall the exact series of events – that the sound of the rain against his umbrella had gone. His feet still splashed in puddles, but it seemed the rain had stopped. He lowered his umbrella, looking around, but still saw others trying to protect themselves against the wet. He stopped, thinking that he must be in some pocket of quiet, the eye of the storm where all was peaceful.

A sudden gale nearly blasted him off his feet, buffeting him and drenching his clothes. He had a momentary glimpse of his tattered umbrella before it disappeared into the gray of the sudden deluge. Then as suddenly as it had hit, it ceased. Again he was in the quiet in the midst of the storm. But it was different this time.

The rain still fell, but it no longer touched him.

*     *     *     *     *

I have no idea where this goes. And it doesn’t matter. It’s more fun that way.

–Michael

See also: Writing Exercise #1: Be Uninspired
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My bad writing day #1

This post is about 250 words. Note the #1 in the title. I expect many posts in this theme.

Yesterday was an all-around bad writing day: both at the office and in my personal life. My energy level was low. My creativity was non-existent. In fact, this post contains the uninspired remnants of the day. Fortunately, it’s short.

  • I needed to write some marketing copy. Nope.
  • I needed to work on my manuscript. Nope.
  • I needed to write a recommendation for someone. Nope.
  • I went to a go-to remedy for days like this: blogging. Big nope.

Most of what I wrote is garbage. Seriously. Here’s what it was like re-reading some of it this morning.

near vomit

Fortunately, years of writing have allowed me to jettison my ego when it comes to days like that. I’m willing to throw away every single word and start over. I’ve often found it takes more effort to fix uninspired writing than it does to simply begin again.

As such, the day was not a complete waste. As many have said before me, a person learns more from the failures than the successes. I learned (again) that days like this still occur regardless of how many thousands of hours I’ve spent on the craft.

Here are three helpful things to remember when you have a writing day like this:

  1. Bad writing does not equal a bad idea – go back to the heart of the idea
  2. Start fresh – don’t try to re-work garbage
  3. It always gets better – because it certainly can’t get worse!

Good luck and good writing!

–Michael

Enjoy what you just read? Leave a comment or like the post and we’ll ensure that you see more like this from Michael!

© Michael Wallevand, August 2016

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My awful query email

I’m currently researching literary agents, somewhat dreading the query emails I’ll need to write because of the perfection they require. Yes, yes, I know agents are people, too. But the query needs to be perfect because I’m trying to sell these people my baby.

Wait…that came our wrong.

Anyways, here is how my mind exaggerates my queries into weirdly desperate cries for help. Something like this:

beggingTo Whom It May Concern:

Thank you for taking the time to read this query. I found your listing while searching for an agent to represent my fantasy novel, The Princess and the To-Be-Named Important Event.

This is going to be painful. My apologies in advance. This submission represents my first attempt to gain agent representation, as well as my first attempt to become a published author. I have no idea how to write a query email. I’ve written thousands of business letters and scores of cover letters, so you can expect this email to be well-written and typo-free. But when it comes to begging for your service, I’m lost. Continue reading →

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Blogging takes away from writing time?

This post is about 350 words.

You want to be a writer. You think you’ve got a brilliant author inside you, struggling to break free. The only way you’re going to become that person is devote all possible time to that endeavor, right? Maybe.

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But perhaps you’ll go crazy if that’s your only outlet.

Like food, drinking, and hobbies, it’s all about moderation. Indulging too much will make you – where is this analogy going? – a fat, drunk, hoarder of words? Well, you’ll burn out, at any rate.

There will be times where you can’t look at your manuscript for one more keystroke. Other times, you’ve got nothing left in the tank. Or worse, you can do nothing but question your desire and ability to write the Great American Novel.

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Continue reading →

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Tighten up your writing #2

This post is approximately 450 words. Many of them rewritten.

There are as many analogies about writing as there are fish in the sea. Today’s thalassic comparison will liken writing to lacing up a shoe.

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This is a simile I’ve been thinking about as I’m taking the first draft of my manuscript and tightening up the writing.

No, let’s try that again.

As I’ve been editing the writing in my first draft, I’ve felt like I’m tightening up loose shoelaces.

Better, but room for improvement.

As I’m editing my first draft, I often feel like I’m tightening loose shoelaces.

Ahhh, much better.

Writing a post like this is great because it allows me to show the evolution of the writing, literally as I’m writing it. Well, not exactly literally, but you get the point. And I digress.

I’m currently working on the second draft, which means I’m reading a lot of bad writing. That’s fine and was expected. Sometimes that first draft text is just stream-of-consciousness stuff or the channeling-of-the-muse-that-conveys-information-faster-than-I-can-type stuff. It’s loose, much like a shoe that first time your feed laces through the eyelets.

Try again.

It’s loose, much like a shoe as you feed the laces through the eyelets the first time.

Satisfied?

It’s loose, much like a new shoe receiving its first lace.

OK, I could do this all day, but I don’t want to lose your interest. You could wear the shoe like that – laces untied and flopping about – and to be honest, I often did as a kid. But slack laces are no good for running and other shoe-related activities. The same is true for a loose manuscript. Right now, I’m tripping on things all over the place. I also have to move at a slow pace. If I tried to share this with a reader – even my forgiving wife – the story would fall flat on its face because I didn’t take the time to properly edit and rewrite it. Continue reading →

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Writing Update: July 16, 2016

This post is about 500 words. 

Fingertip sketchIt’s been a few weeks since my last writing update, and in that time, I’ve passed 92,000 words, done some painting, and added a few other posts to the site. I also added a new page – a placeholder for illustrators because I’m looking to partner with one or more people to bring some additional life to the website.

That might seem like a full schedule, but I did have two major events in there:

  1. Fourth of July weekend – with distractions abound. Some were the exploding kind, but many were the kind that required feeding.
  2. Bought a new truck – which necessitated a lot of time for research. And a bit of joyriding. OK, a lot of joyriding.

Neither of those was unwelcome, of course, but they left less time for writing.

Perhaps more importantly in that time period, the novel has officially reached Second Draft status! To be honest, it took longer to get here than originally anticipated, but now that I’m here, it doesn’t seem like I wasted too much time along the way.

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What does this milestone mean? For one, I’ve hit all the primary beats of the story. All the things I wanted to convey are down on the page. Additionally, I don’t want to add any more subplots or characters into the mix because I’m happy with the balance I currently have. And finally, it means the real work begins.

Oh yeah, if it took an effort to get to this point, I expect even more challenges as I try to bring the words to life. The story has direction. A beginning, middle, and end. Character development and scenery.

On WritingBut there are holes. Flat characters and scenes. I expect there’s a bunch of garbage to purge, as well as scenes that contradict each other. That’s fine and was anticipated. Unlike that foolish youth I used to be, I understand that your first draft is not your only draft. Stephen King’s rule of thumb is to cut 10% of your first draft here. For those of you who like math, that’s a 9,200-word removal, or 2-3 chapters.

If you’re expecting perfection at the end of the first draft, I think you’ll be surprised to discover you have a poorly-written document that doesn’t accurately convey the brilliance of the full story floating about your head. And that’s not something that does anyone any good, especially the readers you hope to engage. For a little context, most of my blog posts are second or third draft. Some are fourth.

So, it’s time to add some layers, some color, some real personality, and some real emotion into my story. It’s in my head, even if I can’t articulate it yet. Here’s to the Second Draft.

Cheers!

Enjoy what you just read? Leave a comment or like the post and we’ll ensure that you see more like this from Michael!

© Michael Wallevand, July 2016

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Bring Your Character To Life…Literally

This post is approximately 350 words.

In April, my colleagues Christi and Michael were discussing Hero Forge, a website that allows you to design your own gaming miniature and have it 3D-printed. Being a Warhammer fan, the conversation put me into nerd overdrive. Design my own character and play with hold it in my hand? Gaming nirvana, my friends.

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To be honest, I enjoy gluing, painting, and basing Warhammer miniatures more than the game itself. In some future post, I’ll write about the similarities between the painting and writing processes. But I digress.

As I spent hours designing fun figures, it occurred to me that I could bring my novel’s main character, Tildy, to life. Imagine having your own character sitting on your desk, thought-made-real. But not just one! Oh man, the possibilities are nearly endless. I wrote briefly about it here.  Continue reading →

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Writing Exercise #1: Be Uninspired

This post is about 500 words and was originally posted on LinkedIn.

If you like to write (or like the idea of writing but hate the difficulty of it), I have an exercise for you to try. I used it to create this article.

Many of us have had those glorious days where the words are flowing to your fingertips faster than you can type. It’s effortless. It’s a wondrous feeling that re-establishes your faith in your abilities and confirms that The Great American Novel is just a few sessions like this from being completed.

Upon your return to the computer, the black reality sets in. There’s nothing. No inspiration at all. In fact, there are days where I’ve been certain that banging my head against the keyboard would produce better prose than the barely-coordinated tapping of my fingers.

This is where my exercise comes in. Trust me, it works. Continue reading →