Happy Thanksgiving 2013

At a recent conference the keynote speaker said that 14 was the number of deliverance so that 2014 would be the year of deliverance. All I can say is: Amen to that. During an audience participation segment the speaker asked us (a group of about 40 women and 1 man) what did "success" mean for us. One woman stated that for her it meant being grateful. She had a point. No one gets anywhere in life by his or herself.  Thanksgiving is one of the times we reflect on our blessings. And it's time to consider mine.

I am thankful for my ever supportive and the opportunity to return the favor as he works on a large appeal due on December 16. My boys are both a source of joy and frustration. I am not thrilled about the questions about sex that are starting to appear on a somewhat regular basis. But heck, they are that age and I'm grateful that they feel comfortable coming to me to ask those questions. I'm  a romance writer, right? I should be able to field those questions. Right?

Despite serious health issues my father is still with us. I am humbled by the many many sacrifices my parents made for my siblings and I and for the person they helped me become. While it wasn't my Mom's idea, or even desire, I am glad that they sold their house near Tampa, FL to move into their house in Orlando, FL where my brother lives so he could help with my Dad's care while I was hundreds of miles away. I am eternally grateful to my brother for what he does for our parents, and his long-term employment with Disney so we can get into the park for a lot less than we would otherwise. I am sure my sons echo that last point.

I am thankful for the invitation to become a staff member for Superstars Writing Seminar. I've written about this before so I won't belabor the point but I am eternally grateful to the friends and fellow Tribe members I've met over the years at Superstars. Being part of the Superstars Tribe and the Flash Fiction Online family has done wonders for my confidence in myself as a writer and person.

When I left a second firm in less than 9 months in February, my clients came with me. I can't thank them enough for that leap of faith or their patience with me as I figured out going it on my own. One individual spent several hours tracking me down through three firms and my Linked In profile because I'd worked for one of his company's vendors more than a decade ago, and when they had a problem of a similar nature I was the one they wanted to handle it. I helped several clients get the benefits they were due and that, in turn, made their lives a little better, a little brighter. There are very few things better in life than knowing you were able to help someone who needed it. I thank my clients for giving me the opportunity to serve them.

I am humbled by all of you who spend a little bit of your week with me on this blog.

So, while 2013 has been full of challenges there was a lot of good too. I hope life is kind to you and your family and your life is full of things to be thankful for.

Avoiding 5 Writing "Mistakes"

I recently finished editing New Bohemia: Just One Night and am waiting to get it back from the first beta reader. Waiting for those comments is always nerve wracking. Instead of obsessing, I thought I'd share some editing tips I've learned from my "mistakes" along the way. The list below contains some of the things I check my work for before I end the first stage of editing.

1. Don't have disembodied body parts.

I owe my education on this one to Celina Summers, Head Muse at Musa Publishing. It was something that I'd never considered before she pointed it out. Now I can't ignore when it happens. I tend to make this "mistake" when I'm trying to vary sentence structure and not constantly start the sentences with a pronoun or proper noun.

What do I mean by disembodied body parts? When there's no person attribution and the writer uses only the unattributed body part to function as the sentence's subject. 

So, the sentence, "Fingernails scraped across the chalkboard" falls into this category. Really, the nails did it by themselves? They weren't attached to fingers and those fingers weren't attached to a hand? Unless, you're reading a zombie novel and the parts really can act without being attached to someone, it's probably better to write "Her fingernails scraped across the chalkboard." 

2. Watch out for unintentional distancing in the narrative.

My first editor at Musa, Jennifer Ayers, pointed this out to me. It was one of those face-meet-palm moments because it's brilliantly simple once you know what you're looking for.

One of the main benefits of a third person point of view (POV) is it creates a connection between the reader and the character. When we create distance between the reader and the character we run the risk of losing the reader's interest and having her put the book down. Unintentional distancing is a type of POV violation or redundancy.

You create distance with a sentence like: "Bob felt the coarse texture of the rough spun wool under his fingers."

Why? Because we're already in Bob's POV. So telling me that "Bob felt" takes me a step back. A "better" sentence might be "The coarse texture of the rough spun wool abraded his fingers." Why do I think that's better? The precatory language "Bob felt" is gone. Also, the second sentence is more interesting because it tells me more about Bob and the feel of the material.

3. Avoid talking heads.

There are days I wonder if I should have been a screenwriter. My first draft of a scene is generally mostly dialog. I don't fill in the character movements or blocking fleshed out. While "talking heads" scenes are fine in a first draft, there needs to be more detail before the first beta reader gets a look. Long stretches of dialog needs to be interrupted by action, even if that action is as simple as standing up,.

4. When you limit weak verbs, characters rarely just "stand up" or "walk."

Speaking of standing up, motion gives you a chance to show character. Whether a character eases down into a seat, perches on the edge or extends his left leg out straight ad stiff when he sits tells a lot about who he is or his emotional state.  There's a difference between a character who "danced" across the street, and another who "lumbered" across it. The words "dance" and "lumber" evoke different mental images. Did you see a female moving for "danced" and a male for "lumbered"? I did.

Verb choices matter.

5. Remember the setting.

I just finished reading 20 storied for Flash Fiction Online's slush pile. At a guess one quarter of those stories suffered from the White Room Syndrome. It is almost never appropriate to ignore the setting. It is almost never appropriate to set a scene in a white painted room with white furniture. Yawn. I've seen a character waking up in a fully white room work once in a story. Once. And that character woke up in a hospital cell in a futuristic Center for Disease Control Center.

Also, keep in mind that POV matters when describing setting. An interior designer will notice more and different details than a 5 year old when looking at the same room. But both will notice and mentally, at least, comment on the space.

I hope this was helpful, or at least interesting. Now I'll go back to waiting. Sigh.

Why?

We're in the middle of another round of winnowing at Flash Fiction Online. As it often does, winnowing makes me think about what goes into a good story. One of the things I noticed with this round of stories is that the ones I rejected as "NAS" (not a story) had something in common. They all failed to answer my "why" questions.

"Why is the main character acting like this?"
"Why is the world like this?"
"Why do I care?"

Okay, that last one grows out of the first two.

The best stories answer questions. I'm going to use an imperfect analogy for a moment. If you equate a novel with a movie, then a flash fiction piece is a short discrete section with its own beginning, middle and end. A short story or flash story doesn't work when it's only a scene. So, let's take Dangerous Liaisons (1988). If you were to write the sword fight scene toward the end of the movie as a flash piece you're going to have a problem. Valmont makes two decisions based on what's come before in the movie. We know why he makes the choices he does because the groundwork was laid. Without the groundwork, the fight scene and its conclusion are unfulfilling.

But wait, why did the Sixth Sense (1999) work? Wasn't the biggest why hidden throughout the story and only revealed at the twist ending? Not really. When you go back and watch the movie again (and again), you start noticing that the writer and director, M. Night  Shyamalan, littered the story with clues, some subtle, some less so. In fact, one of the characters tells you flat out the why and why it's "hidden" early in the story. We just don't notice. But our subconscious picked up on them in the first viewing which is why we don't feel cheated at the final reveal.

I believe that the reader needs to know or, at least, be given the clues to put the why together through the story.

Let's take another example.

The first few minutes of Disney's Up (2009), show the main character, Carl, as a young boy meeting the girl he'll eventually marry. We see the heart break of their learning they can never have children and the life they make for themselves. We see Carl's losing Ellie.

Why is showing Carl as a young boy, and then through his marriage, important? Because those minutes, a story story, tell you why Carl won't sell the house, why he's shut himself away from the world, and why he reacts the way he does when the mailbox is damaged. So, when Carl then makes the decision that changes his life, we understand it. Heck, we want him to succeed.

If you strip those moments off, and just start with present day Carl and his house surrounded by construction, the story no longer works. After all, it's just an old house. Why doesn't he get with the program and move? Carl goes from being a sympathetic character to just a grumpy old man standing in the way of progress. He hasn't been shown to have capacity to be more. It's a different movie all together.

If the why is only revealed in your "twist" ending, you might want to reconsider your story structure. Either show me, or give me hints to let me figure out the  big "why" of your story, let me know why your main character acts or is the way she is, and I'll keep reading. Let me wonder about her motivation, and it's easy for me to put the story down.

Thoughts From The Slush Pile

If you write, and submit those stories, you dread the slush pile. It's an inevitable part of the process. The way you get out of the slush and into print is to impress someone like me. Someone who has  volunteered or is low man on the totem pole and has not choice but to wade through the slush and pan for gold. So, I decided to give you another peak into the heart and mind of a slush reader (me) at Flash Fiction Online.

Sometimes what wins the heart and soul of the slush reader - to the point I'm willing to fight for the story - is hard to precisely define. Over the last several months we had two stories that illustrate the point. One of the stories I'll call a message piece, while the other was a funereal/memorial piece.

How were these very different stories alike:
(1) They were both well written. It was obvious that both writers were talented, and knew their craft;
(2) The stories were polished - no obvious typos;
(3) Both stories had voice and presence.
(4) Both took unexpected routes along the way/ presented something new.
(5) It was argued that both were not stories but rather vignettes capturing a moment in time. Usually the "NAS" notation is a death knell, but these two merited consideration regardless.

So, why did I choose to recommend one, and reject the other?

Tone.

The memorial piece was soft. It invited the reader in. Many of the memorial pieces we see are bitter or drowning in grief. This one was tinged with grief, but the act of moving through grief rather than wallowing in it was the story. It was painted with the lightest brush strokes. It also used a tried and true speculative fiction trope in a new way. Because the tone and emotion was so inviting, I was willing to overlook some things which might otherwise resulted in a rejection - such as a main character that did not sound age appropriate

Message pieces are difficult. You always run a risk of losing the story to the message. The best ones, in my opinion, are the message stories where you don't realize that it was a message story until it is done. If the message is laid in too heavily, no one is going to read the story. In my opinion, this second story was strident, and very heavy handed. It relied on a gimmick to beat me over the head with the message if I couldn't glean it from the prose. It was rejected because of it's tone. If you are working on a message piece, my advice for you would be to use a soft touch.

When we're writing, we need to pay attention to the mood of the story. Sometimes a mood will draw people in. Other times it will repulse them. Sometimes you will want to repulse the readers, but realize each time you do, you make it easier for the reader to put the story down. In a longer work, you're going to mix in the heavy moods with the lighter ones. But short stories don't give you that leeway. You can hit one emotional note. Make sure you're hitting the right one with the right intensity.

Good luck, and good writing.

The Balancing Act

Life is a balancing act.

 

Recently, I've been listening to the music from Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog with my boys. Why do I bring this up? I mean other than to note the amazing writing by Joss Whedon, and the fab acting by Neil Patrick Harris, Nathian Fillion and Felicia Day? One of the songs is called "My Freeze Ray" in which Billy (Neil Patrick Harris) notes that with his freeze ray he will "find the time to find the words." Now, he's talking about the words to tell Penny (Felicia Day) that he loves her. But still, it made me think about my day, and how a freeze ray would help it.

People and obligations push and pull on us. Many days it doesn't feel like there are enough hours to get everything done. All my "jobs" focus on deadlines. The kids have to be at school by a certain time. Court starts at certain time, and while the judge can be late, I can't. Pleadings have deadlines. For some reason, the school wants me to pick up the kids at the end of the day. Go figure. The animals want to be fed. The dogs want to be walked at least twice a day. Can you believe that? Food needs to get on the table and put into the children. Theoretically, the house needs to be cleaned. I check my e-mails (all three), review the slush for Flash Fiction Online, participate in my writing group discussions, market, and participate in three different blogs on a regular basis. Oh, and then, I need to write, edit and submit my fiction. When I tell people about my "normal" day, and they look at me funny and tell me my "normal" day, isn't.

So, how to "find the time to find the words" until Dr. Horrible's Freeze Ray is available at your local discount story?

For me, it means:

1. Engage in triage.

Each morning I spend about 15 minutes writing down what absolutely positively must be done that day. Once I have the impossibly long list, I then assign a level of priority to those items. I tackle the items by their priority between meetings and court appearances. E-mails are read and responded to at 7 am, 11 am. 2pm and 5pm. I try to limit my e-mail checking to those windows to reduce the distraction. If I have a "free" moment, I'm less tempted to stray onto the Internet or other distractions because I can look at my list and work on an item (or part of an item) that fits the time slot. I triage my work load before I leave the office as well so I know what is likely to be my first priority in the morning.

2. Watch very little television.

While it might not be the opiate of the masses, television is the great time sink. There are those guilty pleasures - or to borrow a phrase from Castle - also a Nathan Fillion show - the "deep fried Twinkies" of my life. Castle is one of them. A few other shows fall into this category. But I know every time I watch a show, I've chosen not to use that time to write or do something with my family.

3. Jealously protect my writing time.

Just like any other work assignment or meeting, writing is an entry on my calender. I have a regular appointment from 9 pm to 11 pm each night. Does that mean I do nothing else for those two hours, seven days a week? I wish. What it means is when I watch TV, go out with friends or sleep during that time, I am aware I am choosing those tasks over writing.

4.  Set goals or deadlines.

I've written before about inching toward success on this blog before. You can find that post here. I have a daily writing goal so when I do start, I'm not allowed to stop until the 2 hours time slot is over or I've finished the daily word count. Because I have such a wimpy goal I always end a writing session feeling good because I've usually blows the minimum word count away.  My writing goal is fairly modest (250 words a day), I usually complete the requirement in the first half hour, but since I still have an hour and a half left time-wise, well, you get the picture. 

Speaking of pictures  . . .

5.  Don't drop the tiger.

If these something threats to chew your backside off, all attention must be focused there. That means, that sometimes writing takes a back seat. Be flexible with your goals and deadlines. Realize that sometimes the tiger's going to win. You may have to take a break from writing for a day or more due to other commitments. Just remember that when that happens, get back to writing as soon as possible, and don't worry about "making up" the word count. If you do, the energy you'll need to overcome the inertia will get greater every day and you won't get back in the saddle again.

6. Get away from the writing and spend time with people once and a while.

To write what you know, you need to participate in life. Writers spend a lot of time paying attention to the world around them. The hot dog vender's mustache might wind up on a character. How he deals with a difficult client might add some local color to a scene.

Until we all have freeze rays life will always be about balance.

You can find the time to find the words.

Kill Your Darlings

I have a long post at Fictorians today about what to do with your novel in the aftermath of NaNoWriMo so I'm going to try to keep this post short. Yea, I know. My chances aren't high. Still, I'm going to make the attempt.

There's something I said at Fictorians that I wanted to spend a bit more time with here. For the full story, check out the Fictorians post here. The short version is I've seen stories where the writer's unwillingness to trim out the fat i.e. his "darlings" (those bits that while the writer loves them don't advance plot or character) have poisoned the entire story and made it unpalatable. I've seen this tendency to keep "darlings" in stories I've rejected at Flash Fiction Online as well.

Stephen King coined the phrase "kill your darlings" in On Writing. For this we all owe him a debt. But, killing our darlings isn't easy. The first step in the process is identifying a "darling."

So, how do you know when something is a "darling" to be killed rather than a bit that needs reworking?

For me, there are three ways I know a section, or an entire story, is a "darling."

1. The section doesn't advance plot or character, or is misplaced.

These are the "darlings" you hope to discovery on your first editing pass. Sometimes they are hard to pick out though.  You may have a scene characters walking around a bazaar to set the place. If that's all the characters are doing though, the scene may really be a darling. The scene could be saved by showing character - what the point of view character notices - or somehow advances the plot by giving the reader a hint he might not realize at the time. I find my "darlings" tend to be more like "in jokes", funny to those who know, but incomprehensible to the rest of your readers.

In the play I mentioned in my Fictorian's post, I remember a "darling" where the main character's (a writer) characters were trying to figure out what an item was. The payoff for the scene was a bad pun. From a technical stand point, the scene is a good example of how point of view affects a story. From a storytelling point, the scene was a disaster as the joke didn't advance the arc in the play. It needed to be deleted even though more than 20 years later, I can still remember it.

Clever turns of phrases also fall into this slot. The image might be vivid, but if it's in the wrong spot, it's a "darling" that needs to be killed. As an example the phrase "threw it away from her like last week's rotten fish" is evocative but it doesn't belong in a love scene where the main character rips off her boyfriend's shirt and hurls it across the room.


2.  The section doesn't fit into any plot box.

I've written about the Hollywood formula, but in essence, the "formula" states that to bring the viewer a satisfying story, that story must hit certain "beats" and turning points. Some of these points are the "bad guys close in" and "all is lost" moments. If I can't name the beat the scene is serving, it is probably a "darling."


3. My readers' feedback is "hu?" or many people note a problem with the section.

Beta readers are invaluable. Sometimes the best feedback a reader can give you is "hu?" A "hu" means either your writing wasn't clear or the reader doesn't understand why the scene is in the story. The second is a "darling" that must be killed.

If a number of your readers are calling your attention to a particular section, you have a problem there. While the reader might not be able to articulate the problem, those sections need to be scrutinize. If the problem is that the section is a "darling" you may need to kill it. 

I had several of these "darlings" in Kalypso's Song, published in Shots at Remdemption. This story started as an experiment. I wanted to see if I could keep the feel of a Homerian story in a contemporary romance. I read about thirty different translations of the Odyssey, many of which were in the public domain to get the feel of the style. Yet, as I got feedback, the sections where I most closely imitated the Homerian-era voice were the ones were I received complains of being too "purple." Despite the fact that those bits were the ones I was the most proud of, I cut them because the were hurting my story.

"Killing your darlings" isn't easy. But it's necessary. I hope my guidelines for ferreting out "darlings" help make your writing strong.

Happy Thanksgiving.

For most of us in the United States today is a day we pause to reflect on the good things in our lives. And, to be truthful, eat far too much turkey and fixin's.

So, what am I thankful for?

I'm watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade with my sons. Although, my husband growled something about being in the next room where he could hear the parade was close enough for him, thank you very much. Hurricane Sandy did not hit Virginia with force it was originally expected to. My families, birth, surrogate and by affinity, are still intact although members in each group still struggle with serious health issues.

I've had a fabulous year with my writing, including being published in an anthology, having two short story collections and a novella published by my fabulous publisher, Musa Publishing. Because I've had a fabulous year, I was able to meet lots more people in the industry. I joined Flash Fiction Online as a staff member and will attend this year's Superstars Writing Seminar as staff. I am thankful for all of you who read my blog and who have bought my books.

Sure, there are things I can complain about. There always will be. But today's not a day for complaints. It's a day to rejoice in what we have, and realize that there are always others who struggle through with less.

So, thank you. I am deeply moved and honored that you take the time out of your day to spend a little of it with me.

I hope you and your family have a joyous Thanksgiving.

Top Ten Reasons Why I Reject Flash Fiction Stories

I've blogged about being a slush reader for Flash Fiction Online, but it's been a while since I've updated you on it. In an average month, my team will have about 80 stories to review. Only stories with two votes for publication are guaranteed to move into the next round. A story can still be sent on if someone likes it enough to fight for it. So, when you submit a story for consideration your first hurdle is to get the slush pile reader to like it.

So over the last six months I've complied my top ten reasons why I reject a story. Keep in mind that the items on the list are my reasons for saying "no," other slush readers may, and probably do, have different reasons for rejecting stories. When I started the list I thought I was going to have to work to fill it up. Sadly, I didn't.

10. The "Meh" Response. Sometimes there's nothing technically wrong with a story, but it still isn't working for me. Often this is because I can't find anything "special" in it. What do I mean by "special?" If you are using one of the tried and true tropes (girl meets vampire, they fall in love, she becomes a vampire to be with him forever, for example), you need a new take on the trope to set it apart from everything else out there. Stephanie Meyers had sparkly vampires - that was new. The more tried and true your base storyline, the more you'll need those "special" elements to make the story stand out for me. It could be your main character (MC) doesn't have any particular strong traits and doesn't make me hate him enough to love him, or there's no real setting (or a "usual suspect one"). In every story you write, something and usually several somethings have to be special. It has to draw me in and make me take notice. Stories that get the "Meh" response are often at the "close, but not quiet there" level because the don't hook me.

9. The Main Character Is Too Stupid To Live. Okay, we've all done it. I've done it. If an MC is making obviously dumb choices just to move your story along, the writer will have a problem convincing me to move that story to the next level. Often this problem is because the MC doesn't have enough of a personality to make the stupid choice. We've all pick a path that was obviously wrong even when we knew it was. Why'd we do it then? Because that's who we are. The same has to be true for characters. A teenager making a bad choice (like shoplifting) on impulse, I'll find plausible. I won't find the same action plausible if the person is a fifty-year old male who is successful, rich, and a pillar of the community if  I haven't seen in advance that he has poor impulse control, or  some other credible reason why he's suddenly willing to throw his life away to snatch a t-shirt. A character's actions must line up with her personality traits and motivations.

8. Overuse of a thesaurus, "denseness" or other forms of "purple prose".  In my definition, "purple prose" or "dense writing" happens when the writer is busy showing us her style and that style is getting in the way of the storytelling. Fifty cent words are great when the character, and not the writer, would actually use them. Yes, use all five senses, but not in the same sentence. Not every noun needs an adjective. Not every verb needs an adverb. This type of "dense" writing is hard to read. My attention wants to stray to something else.

I tend to be guilty of "sparse" writing. I don't get into interior thoughts or scene setting enough. My editor's comments are often - "add more X here." As a result, when someone else is laying it on thick, I notice. Pare your work to only use the descriptions that matter. While a 66 word sentence are fine on occasion, they shouldn't be the norm. If your sentences look like paragraphs, you might have a problem to address.


7. Numerous Grammatical Errors. Bet you thought this would be higher didn't you?

No matter how many times you go over a manuscript, there will be typos, dropped words and other errors. I can forgive some. If you have a lot, you're telling me you don't care enough about the story and don't respect my time enough for me to waste any more on the story.

By the way, knowing when to break a paragraph is essential. Knowing how to write dialog, including internal dialog, is essential. Sixty-six word sentences (no joke, I do count) almost always need to be broken down as they express more than one thought.

Check to make sure your pronouns link to the noun you wanted. After a 66 word sentence with numerous nouns the word "it" in the next sentence refers back to the last noun, which is probably not the one you wanted.

6. A Forgettable Main Character  Or One I Have No Sympathy For. I don't have to like your main character, but it helps. If you are writing an unlikable main character you have your job cut out for you. You need to make me care about John the Bastard if you expect me to read his story. The anti-hero story can be wonderful when done right. And I can reject a story about a perfectly nice main character. Whether your character is likable or not, I need to have some connection to her. Without a connection, you make it easy for me to reject the story.

5. Lack of Clarity. I'm not going to work too hard to figure out what's going on. If I can't do so in a paragraph or two, you've given me a reason to stop reading. I MIGHT go back and look at the story again to see if my confusion was because I was tired or preoccupied, but I might not. Don't risk your story on that chance. Stories that I end up saying, "hu?" or "what just happened?" get voted off the island.

4. Telling me the character's bored or it's just an ordinary day. If the character's bored why should I want to go on a journey, even the short one in flash, with her? The same issue exists with telling me that "the day started out like any other. . ." I groan a bit when I see that. While common wisdom says start your story before your MC's world gets blown to heck, common wisdom is also wrong. If you need an "establishing shot" of every day life, it needs to be short and absolutely required for me to understand what happens.  I'll give you a paragraph (which in flash is generous) to give me an issue or a character to get involved with.

3. Not submitting a complete story.  This is actually easier to do than you would think, especially in the flash (500 - 1,500 word) format. I've seen some wonderful character sketches and scenes, but that doesn't make them publishable. A complete story has a beginning, middle and end. If your story doesn't have all of these it will get the "NAS" (Not A Story) label and a reject vote. Check out my post on the Hollywood Formula for Flash Fiction for more on this one.

2. Withholding the main character's name.  You aren't creating mystery; you aren't making your main character "any man." You are annoying me as the reader. There are a precious few times when you should withhold the main character's name like when your story is told in the first person, but the MC doesn't interact with other characters right away. But as soon as the MC does run into someone else, you should tell me the MC's name.

1.  Withholding information the Point of View character knows as a means to create a mystery or a twist.  This is PET PEEVE #1 for me so be warned. I see many stories where the writer withholds a critical piece of information that the point of view character knows, like the ghost in the story is really the main character's little sister, to "create suspense" or a "twist." If your suspense is based on hiding information from your reader, you don't have suspense, you have a trick.

The Sixth Sense worked because the main character didn't know the twist, and early on in the story the viewer is told the critical piece of information that makes the main character's lack of knowledge credible. If you dissect The Sixth Sense, you'll see hints scattered throughout the movie leading up to the "twist." It's why we accepted it.

If you are going to withhold information you have to be very careful which point of view you use so that person doesn't know the truth and the reader figures it out with him. Otherwise it's a quick trip to the reject bin for the story.

Anyway, those are some of the reasons I'll turn a story down. They apply to whether you're writing flash or an epic fantasy. Hopefully knowing how this slush reader thinks will help you get published. Good luck and keep submitting.

If you want to critique my work to see if I violated my own guidelines,  you can find my two short story collections, Paths Less Traveled and Shots at Redemption, at Musa Publishing, Amazon, Barnes and Nobel and Smashwords.

Six Questions For . . .: Six Questions for Pat Dey, Slushreader, Flash Fict...

Flash Fiction Online publishes stories from 500-1,000 words containing "strong, interesting characters, plots, and (to some extent, at least) settings." Check out Pat Dey's interview on how the process works at: Six Questions For . . .: Six Questions for Pat Dey, Slushreader, Flash Fict...:

The Hollywood Formula for Flash Fiction

I have a confession to make. I'm not a natural short story writer. I have to fight to keep myself from haring off after one plot thread or another. Writing short fiction is hard. So, I look for anything that helps me confine a story into the appropriate length and still have it be a story. One of the reasons we reject a submission at Flash Fiction Online http://flashfictiononline.com is that it's only a scene not a story.

So, how do you fit all the necessary story elements into 1000 words?

Writing Excuses http://writingexcuses.com did a podcast on the "Hollywood Formula" in Season 6. Lou Anders http://louanders.com visited the pod cast and talked about how his mentor, Dan Decker, divided any story into its three parts (beginning, middle, end). I recommend you check out the entire Writing Excuses podcast at http://www.writingexcuses.com/2011/10/02/writing-excuses-6-18-hollywood-formula/.

The short version of the Hollywood Formula: a story generally has three main characters and three parts. The three characters are the Protagonist, the Antagonist, and Dynamic or Relationship character. In a non-modified formula the first act takes about 1/4 of your word count, second 1/2 and the third has the final 1/4. In a Flash Fiction story that means roughly 250 words for the beginning, 500 for the middle and 250 for the ending.

Certain story benchmarks happen in each act. In the first act, you introduce the three main character and what they want. About a tenth of the way into the first act (or at about 25 -30 words), the protagonist makes the fateful decision. I think of this as the red light moment. If the protagonist says no, the story's over. Do not go past "go", do not collect $200. In Flash, you probably have until about 100 words for the protagonist to make that choice. BUT the protagonist must make a choice.

In the middle, the protagonist needs to be asking and answering questions. This section starts about 1/2 way through the first act (or 120-130 words) and ends about 1/2 way through the second act (word 500). Once the protagonist knows what the questions are, he needs to start answering them. Right about word 650 or so the protagonist hits his "low point" - the place in the story where things are at their worst and he's as far from his goal as he could be. Act II closes around word 750.

From the "low point" to the end is the final battle. In this act, the protagonist must defeat his antagonist, obtain his goal, and reconcile with the relationship character. The closer these events happen to each other, the more emotional impact your story will have.

But wait, you say, my short story only has two characters, does that mean I need to add someone else?

No. The three act pattern should get modified based on your story. Some stories are all about the final battle. Some are all about asking and answering questions. But, a story needs to include all these elements. Stories that fall flat are missing part of the formula. If you can't find these elements, you might have a scene, not a story. Now you know why short stories, and flash fiction in particular, are so hard to write. But you can do it. I know you can.

Tales of Caution - Second Person Narrative

A writer has three choices for grammatical person in telling a story: first, second or third person. Which “person” you choose determines which pronouns you use. In general terms a first person narrative is told to the reader by a narrator and uses “I”, “me” or “mine”. Second person uses “you” or “your.” Third person, the most common form for contemporary fiction, uses “he”, “she” or “it” and all the related permutations. For a detailed review of these narrative styles, see Grammar Girl’s excellent podcast on them.

When writing in second person. the writer often breaks the fourth wall, and talks directly to the reader. It works well for blog posts since I am talking directly to you. Writing second person fiction, on the other hand, is a risk. Modern readers aren’t use to it. When done well
in fiction – like in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off - it’s a powerful tool, and forges an instant connection between the reader and the main character. Done poorly, this technique is a disaster.

Recently, we had a few second person stories come through the submitted to Flash Fiction Online. Second person narrative fiction stories are hard to sell. I don’t reject them just for being second person. I want to see another Ferris Bueller's Day Off. But I don’t want to filter the thoughts of a serial killer as if they were my own, which is what second person does. I don’t want to be told “you draw the knife over the milky white throat. Warm blood spurts from the severed vein and coats you.” Yuck.

If your main character is vile or does vile things, you might not want to tell his story in the second person. I read and loved Dan Wells’ I Am Not A Serial Killer series about a teenage boy, John Cleaver, who is trying not to become a serial killer. John does some bad things, and some very bad things for good reasons. I worried about him. I wanted John not to slide down that very slippery slope. Dan told John’s story in the third person. Similarly, the main character in the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay is a serial killer. The series is very popular, has a strong cult following, and has spawned a related television series. Dexter is written in first person.

But please don’t tell me a pedophile’s, murderer’s or rapist’s story in second person. I WILL reject it. But I might not reject the same work of fiction if the same story is told with some distance between me and the main character – in other words, third person or, even, first person. Good writing means knowing the “rules” and deciding whether the price you’ll pay for breaking them is worth the cost. Before you write fiction in second person, think about who your main character is and whether your reader wants to identify that closely with him. If not, you might better serve your story (and reader) by using a different voice.

What's In A Name?

I’ve recently become a slush pile reader for Flash Fiction Online ("FFO"). FFO publishes short stories of no more than 1,000 words. I've just finished my first round of "slush" - stories submitted in the hope FFO will publish them. Good Flash is hard to write, and I thought I'd pass on my thoughts on what does and doesn't make good Flash.

One of the "mistakes" I've seen in the submissions is something I doubt the writer would do in a novel-length story - not name his character. I put "mistake" in quotes because not naming a character is a pet peeve of mine, and probably not a technical mistake. In my opinion, it’s the rare occasion when a character should be nameless. Humans name things. If we don’t know what something’s called, we’ll make up a label to identify it. It’s unnatural for us not to. Even when an "evil overlord" is trying to dehumanize someone, he'll refer to that person by some label, Javert refers to Jean Valjean by his prison number in Les Miserables.

So what's in a name?

Everything.

By giving a character a name, you give me a way to connect with him. The main character's not a generic "he", he's Bob, or Jose, or Raj, or Apollo. Each name puts a different image in my head, and draws me further into the story.

When I've pointed this out to the writer, I always hear the argument that by withholding information, including even the gender of the main character, the writer is creating mystery. Occasionally, I'll hear the "any man" defense, but by far the "mystery" defense is the most recited.

It doesn't work, at least for me. You might gain a bit of mystery by not telling me the character’s name, but you lose one reason for me to care what happens in your story. It doesn't seem like a wise trade off.

There are times when a character might not have a name: she has amnesia, doesn't know it, and doesn't have anyone else to interact with who will give her a name. Another time not naming the character might work is when she's other-than-human and its culture doesn't have "names" as we do. But those times when this device is used should be few and far between.

Before you submit a story with an unnamed character, ask yourself why. If your reason is to "build mystery", you might want to reconsider that decision. If the immortal bard thought names were important, be certain you have a good reason to ignore his teachings.